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Friday, September 11, 2009

Like many things related to the world of writing there is much debate over the importance of talent versus hard work. Many a beginning author (myself included) has spent needless hours worrying about whether or not they have the required talent to write at any sort of professional level. Others feel cheated when they hear that the important thing is working hard, not whether you have oodles of talent to begin with.

The dilemma, here, is in the definition. How do we distinguish “talent” from “skill”? Guess what? In the end it doesn’t matter.

Here is the skinny on "talent" versus "hard work". Look at something you wrote today. Now compare it to something you wrote a year ago. Or ten years ago. Have you improved?

"I have," you say.

Great. Now, tell me: did you improve because your natural talent blossomed or because you were busting your butt practicing your craft?

Of Lips and Tongue

Delaney Green is one of them that don't burn. Possessed of the Touch, she's been twisting the future like a piece of string, but is it enough to save the man she loves?

Of Shade and Soul

Delaney Green might be dead, but she don't mean to stay that way. As she searches for a way back to the realm of the living, and the man she lay down flesh and bone for, Percival Cox and his team investigate a series of deaths and stolen souls. But Percy is not the man he used to be. If Del can't find a way to stop him from waking his past, he could destroy everything, including himself.

Of Flesh and Bone

Delaney Green may have found her way back to the living, but her new body isn't going to last. Without magic, and still separated from Percy, she is forced to rely on the tangled memory of what might be to find a way to reclaim her bones. With the help of an old ally, and the reluctant assistance of new enemies, Del must take the final steps down a long road home.

For Kindle

The Weather's Always Fine in Paradise

Dust

Half-Fae cop, Jonas Flannery has lost enough partners in his years on the job - to drugs, to corruption, to the monsters that prowl the streets. When his current partner, Lola Rodriguez, is whammied by a dying pixie queen, he finds himself in a race against time to find the drug producing Dust farm, free the other Corlun, and save Lola before the magic breaks her mind.

Legacy

When a skin-changer looking for passage to Lake Ponchartrain collapses at her feet, Willa Arch finds herself drawn into a conflict between the iron-willed Queen Elsbett of Brittania and Queen of the Dead, Marie Laveau. But survival means coming face to face with Willa's own deadly legacy of fur and teeth.

In the Cool of the Day

Miriam's aunts are determined to get everything that's coming to them. With Gran on her deathbed and a storm on the horizon, they are all about to learn that true inheritance is more than things.

The Collections Agent

Milton Jones collects the things people can no longer afford to keep. Magic. Skills. Souls. And, sometimes, a heart.

About Me

A.G. Carpenter writes fiction of (and for) all sorts. Her work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Abyss & Apex, Stupefying Stories and "Beast Within 4: Gears & Growls". She prefers Die Hard to When Harry Met Sally and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly over Animal House. Her favorite color is black. Repped by Bob Mecoy.